She meets M. Vandeloup at a ball, and, hearing
that he is going to marry Mrs Villiers, she loses her head
completely, and threatens to poison herself. M. Vandeloup tries to
wrench the poison from her, whereupon she flings it into the garden.
This bottle has disappeared, and the presumption is that it was
picked up. But if the jury had any idea that the poison was
administered from the lost bottle, they might as well dismiss it
from their minds, as it was absurd to suppose such an improbable
thing could happen. In the first place no one but M. Vandeloup and
Miss Marchurst knew what the contents were, and in the second place
what motive could anyone who picked it up have in poisoning Mrs
Villiers, and why should they adopt such an extraordinary way of
doing it, as Miss Marchurst asserted they did? On the other hand,
Miss Marchurst tells M. Vandeloup that she still has some poison
left, and that she will kill Mrs Villiers sooner than see her
married to him. She declares to M. Vandeloup that she will kill her,
and leaves the house to go home with, apparently, all the intention
of doing so. She comes home filled with all the furious rage of a
jealous woman, and enters Mrs Villiers' room, and here the jury will
recall the evidence of Mrs Villiers, who said Miss Marchurst did not
know that the deceased was sleeping with her. So when Miss Marchurst
entered the room, she naturally thought that Mrs Villiers was by
herself, and would, as a matter of course, refrain from drawing the
curtains and looking into the bed, in case she should awaken her
proposed victim.
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